Fun with espanso

[3mbry0]

Hello. Sorry to revive this old post with a somewhat unrelated question.

Is there a way to use espanso to copy two different texts and type something to paste them all at once? Here’s an example:

In Obsidian, if I wanted to link to an article or YT video, I’d type []() and copy & paste the URL into (), then do the same for the article/vid’s title in [] so that it only displays the title. But that’s twice the time and effort of copying, pasting and moving between windows.

To reduce that time & effort, I made this script:

- trigger: ":url"
    replace: "[{{title}}]()"
    vars:
      - name: "title"
        type: "clipboard"

I’ve currently set up espanso so that if I copy the article’s title and type :url in Obsidian, the output would be [{{title}}]() where {{title}} is the copied title pasted in []. I’d then manually copy & paste the URL in ().

While this is somewhat faster, it’s not that much, it still requires me to go back and forth between the browser and Obsidian windows.

I was wondering if there’s a way to copy the title first and immediately copy the URL after (or vice versa) and type :url to have espanso paste the two separate texts into the two different brackets all at once: [TITLE](URL). This requires me to only move from browser to Obsidian once.

Hope that makes sense. So far, I’ve found that you could only do this for what’s currently on the clipboard and not what was copied before it.

Also: should this be a separate post instead?

[macedotavares]

I know this isn’t strictly on point, but Alfred (mac app) does that and a hell of a lot more. I created a workflow that even takes a snapshot of the webpage using the Internet Archive. Glass Dome: prevent link rot inside markdown notes

Anyway, if you like the idea, maybe you can look at the code and adapt it to your software.

[Klaas]

For Alfred’s text expansion you need the Powerpack, if I’m not wrong, which needs to be purchased. Correct?

[randulfr]

FWIW, to grab markdown links, eg from a browser page, I use a utility called Hook – Find without searching …I used it just now for that link.

While on browser, it’s 2 key strokes, then toggle over to Obsidian and paste yields []() properly filled in. (With Keyboard Maestro (or Alfred), you could make it 1 key stroke.)

Hook btw is designed for more than that, but it has convenient side effect of easily grabbing links as markdown.

[Rishi]

Are you on a Mac? I’ve a simple AppleScript that I trigger with ⌘⇧C in Safari and it automatically generates the link [TITLE](URL) and put it on my clipboard. More can be done to it for example I copy a lot of YouTube links this way and remove the (20) type text which YouTube puts in the title to show notifications. This is as quick as I can get and perhaps faster than using ⌘C, which would first require me to click the address bar or use another shortcut for it.

[macedotavares]

That’s right. It’s £45 for a lifetime license, which isn’t cheap, but It’s one of the best software purchases I’ve ever made. I’ve used it so much over the past 4 years that it’s become as essential as macOS itself. I’m kind of an unpaid Alfred evangelist, these days.

[akaalias]

I just started using Espanso today for an atomic note template!

Just in case: If Espanso happens to expand text inconsistently, I just found a compatibility issue with running Unshaky in parallel.

Details on Reddit

[chopivy]

Breadcrumbs is a great idea. Below is the version for Windows, written in PowerShell:

  # Breadcrumb
  - trigger: ":bc"
    word: true
    replace: "{{output}}"
    vars:
      - name: output
        type: shell
        params:
          cmd: (echo "[[$((Get-Date).AddDays(-1) | Get-Date -UFormat "%Y-%m-%d")|<< Yesterday]] | [[$((Get-Date).AddDays(+1) | Get-Date -UFormat "%Y-%m-%d")|Tomorrow >>]]")

[s0ph0s]

Here’s a breadcrumb for Keyboard Maestro.

• My custom version includes a separate link to a file named after the week number (at the beginning of the line, since I keep a weekly to-do list that includes the daily lists), but you can just delete that first segment.
• I also like having the day of the week, but you can just remove the %EEEE% to get rid of it. Thought I’d save others the unicode date math in case it’s helpful.

[[2020w%ICUDateTime%ww%]] | %ICUDateTimeMinus%1%Days%EEEE% [[%ICUDateTimeMinus%1%Days%yyy-MM-dd% ]] | %ICUDateTime%EEEE yyy-MM-dd% | %ICUDateTimePlus%1%Days%EEEE% [[%ICUDateTimePlus%1%Days%yyy-MM-dd%]]

• I have it triggered with a typed string of 3 letters. The result looks like this:

[[2020w28]] | Friday [[2020-07-10 ]] | Saturday 2020-07-11 | Sunday [[2020-07-12]]

[node]

Recreated OP’s in Keyboard Maestro, like the minimalistic look. Added the current date as a header to make it stand out when reminiscing.

[[%ICUDateTimeMinus%1%Days%yyy-MM-dd%|<< Yesterday]] | 
[[%ICUDateTimePlus%1%Days%yyy-MM-dd%|Tommorrow >>]]

---
#  %ICUDateTime%EEE, MMM d, yyyy%

[mobelby]

Thanks for the ideas in this thread.

I’ve been using fastkeys (skin for autohotkey) for a few years and taken these ideas and implemented them in fastkeys

[SalT]

Thank you for this one!

[juen]

Breadcrumbs for daily notes in Autohotkey for Windows:

; To run: CTRL + SHIFT + D

^+d:: 
	yesterday := a_now
	yesterday += -1, days

	tomorrow := a_now
	tomorrow += 1, days

	FormatTime, tomorrow, %tomorrow%, yyyy-MM-dd
	FormatTime, yesterday, %yesterday%, yyyy-MM-dd
	
	SendInput, << Yesterday [[Daily notes/%yesterday%|%yesterday%]] | [[Daily notes/%tomorrow%|%tomorrow%]] Tomorrow >> 
	
	Send, {Enter} {Enter} ---
Return

Depending on where your daily notes are stored you have to modify the folder indication (Daily notes/) of the backlink.

[thesoundofacapella]

@chopivy, thank you so much for this - I had no idea I could combine Windows PowerShell and espanso in this way until I saw your post. Adding a day of the week calculation for Windows users, following @mitzimbj suggestions above:

 # This Monday
 - trigger: ":>mon"
   word: true
   replace: "{{output}}"
   vars:
   - name: output
     type: shell
     params:
       cmd: (echo "[[$(if([Int] (Get-Date).DayOfWeek.value__ -gt [Int] [DayOfWeek] 'Monday') {(((Get-Date).AddDays(7- ([Int] (Get-Date).DayOfWeek.value__ - [Int] [DayOfWeek] 'Monday'))) | Get-Date -UFormat "%Y-%m-%d")} Else {((Get-Date).AddDays(([Int] [DayOfWeek] 'Monday') - (Get-Date).DayOfWeek.value__) | Get-Date -UFormat "%Y-%m-%d")})]]")   

This will return [[2020-07-20]]

Limitations: I wasn’t able to find the equivalent of @mitzimbj’s -v command for Windows, so I used an if statement instead. This means that you can’t do a properly formatted link [[2020-07-20 | Monday 20 July, 2020]] as PowerShell throws an error when you try and open a second pipe | (Get-Date) inside the if and else curly { } braces. If anyone knows of a more elegant solution, I would love to hear it.

In situations where today is Monday and I want to fast-forward by a week instead (i.e. Monday > Monday) I use the # Next Week script:

# Next Week
- trigger: ":>w"
  word: true
  replace: "{{output}}"
  vars:
  - name: output
    type: shell
    params:
      cmd: (echo "[[$((Get-Date).AddDays(+7) | Get-Date -UFormat "%Y-%m-%d") | $((Get-Date).AddDays(+7) | Get-Date -UFormat "%A %d %B, %Y")]]")

Please feel free to amend and improve.

[onepointfivem]

Hi, I tried using your script in Windows and I changed it to include week name abbreviated:

FormatTime, tomorrow, %tomorrow%, yyyy-MM-dd_ddd
FormatTime, yesterday, %yesterday%, yyyy-MM-dd_ddd

So it matches by Odisidian daily notes pattern. However, when I run the script, the weekday is in lowercase, so instead of Mon I get mon, different from Obisidian behavior.

Do you know how to fix it?

[mitzimbj]

_ddd is short day, try _dddd

[xzhao]

Thanks so much for sharing! This breadcrumb is really useful for daily notes.

I was able to re-create it using Alfred, in case anyone is interested.

[[{date -1d:yyyy-MM-dd}|<< Yesterday]] | [[{date +1d:yyyy-MM-dd}|Tommorrow >>]]
---

[trickykid]

I tried to the code with breadcrumb (bc) - powershell started, then nothing happens, breadcrumb is not appearing, just blank page. Any ideas why could it happen?

[psyguy]

Hey @trickykid, Bash and (Windows) PowerShell are similar in ways but not identical, thus you should use different syntax (?)/functions. The following espanso command works for me on Windows 10:

  # Breadcrumb
  - trigger: ":bc"
    word: true
    replace: "{{output}}"
    vars:
      - name: output
        type: shell
        params:
          cmd: (echo "[[$((Get-Date).AddDays(-1) | Get-Date -UFormat "%Y-%m-%d (%a)")|<< Yesterday]] | [[$((Get-Date).AddDays(+1) | Get-Date -UFormat "%Y-%m-%d (%a)")|Tomorrow >>]]")

[santi]

Hey guys, is anyone aware of how to achieve this in linux (I’m using manjaro)

@mitzimbj

[[2020-06-21|<< Yesterday]] | [[2020-06-23|Tomorrow >>]]

Neither the Windows nor Mac version of this seemed to work for me.

I found the following in the espanso documentation

Other possible values for the shell parameter are:
On Windows: cmd, powershell, wsl
On macOS: sh, bash
On Linux: sh, bash

https://espanso.org/docs/matches/

I thought the mac bash set up would work for linux, but after setting it up correctly in espanso, it doesn’t work.

with the original code specified by @mitzimbj
after writing :bc after the text expansion all I get is this symbol |

---

with the windows code by @psyguy I get [[|<< Yesterday]] | [[|Tomorrow >>]] without the actual dates.

---

not sure what I’m missing, appreciate any help, or links to documentation to figure this out